Tag: simple

Baked Salmon Fillet

Find a nice piece of salmon fillet for the number of people you want to feed (ask your fishmonger) for this baked salmon fillet dish and prepare it in a gratin ceramic dish. This recipe is very easy.

Serve this with a green salad or blanched french beans. If you would like a meal a little more consistent add couscous semolina or rice.

Ingredients:

For 4 people.

  • 1 large piece of salmon fillet (bones out if possible)
  • 1 tbsp of capers
  • 1/2 red onion
  • fresh thyme,  fresh rosemary or fresh sage (your choice, if you don’t know choose what you have at home or some thyme – my favourite)
  • 1 punnet of cherry tomatoes (10-15 cherry tomatoes, if you only have normal size tomato, go for two of them but in eight pieces each.
  • Olive oil
  • Rock salt (1 tsp)
  • Cracked pepper
  • in the photo above I had some chestnuts to use.  If you want to use some, incise each of them, place them one minute in boiling water, then peel and put in the bake.
Method:
  1. Heat Up the oven to 180ºC.
  2. Place a dash of oil at the bottom of your gratin ceramic dish.
  3. Place your piece of salon in the middle, the tomatoes on the side, the apers and oinion scatred all over.
  4. Put a fillet of olive oil over the dish, add the salt and cracked pepper, then herbs.
  5. Cook for about 20 minutes. The time will vary depending on the thickness of your piece and your oven. To check for doneness, use a small pointy knife and pull apart the flesh of the fish. If it pulls apart, it is ready. Salmon is beautiful when just done, that is when there is still a little pinkness in the flesh (just cooked).
  6. Remove from the oven and serve with blanches greens or a salad. Add some couscous or jasmine rice if you want something a bit more nutricious.

salmon fish cappers red onion

Lemon curd puddings

This lemon curd pudding is one of our favourite. It is quick to make and really easy. I either make it as individual portions as here on the photos or family version in a larger souffle dish.  The pudding consists in a lemon curd (don’t be afraid, read on, you can’t get it wrong) and a cake batter.

ramequin lemon curd pudding

Ingredients:

This makes 8 serves.

For the lemon curd
  • 120 g of butter
  • 170 g of white sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 175 g of lemon juice (about 2 good lemons)

Tip: the bright yellow colour  is linked to the egg yolks, the brighter your eggs, the more vibrant the lemon curd.

For the biscuit

160 g of butter
160 g of castor sugar
3 eggs
160 g of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp grated lemon zest

Method
Lemon curd:
  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan with the lemon juice and sugar.
  2. In a medium bowl, break the eggs and beat them well with a whisk (to homogeneise them). Bring the warm liquid to boiling point.
  3. As soon as bubbles appear on the sides, pur it over the eggs while whisking.  It is very important you whisk all the time to disperse the heat and avoid omelette pieces in your curd.  It is possible the curd will be thickening on its own at this stage, if that is the case, no need to transfer back in the pan and cook further, keep whisking at low pace until the curd cools down a bit more (30 second to 1 minute).  If the curd has not thickened yet, then pour it back to the saucepan, always whisking and place it on medium heat. Keep mixing until the curd thickens then transfer to a clean bowl.

Tip: Want to know when your curd is at the right thickness? If the curd coats the back of a clean spoon (it doesn’t all run away), then it is ready.

Tip: Your lemon curd will further thicken when cooling down.

The pudding

Tip: If you are choosing the turn over steamed version , you will need to line bottoms with greaseproof paper circles. This would not be necessary if you are using silicone moulds. You will also need to cover the ramequins in foil and cook in a large roasting dish with water coming to 1/2 height. 

  1. Heat up the oven to 170ºC
  2. Grease eight small 150 mL ramequins or pudding bowls.
  3. Cream butter and sugar.
  4. Add the eggs on at a time, mix.
  5. Add the flour, baking powder and lemon zest. Mix well.
  6. Spoon two generous tablespoons of lemon curd into each ramequin.
  7. Spoon the biscuit dough over the lemon curd trying to cover it fully.
  8. Bake for about 20 minutes until well golden.  (for the steam version allow 30 min).
  9. Serve warm. Careful it is very hot when just out off the oven.   If unmoulding the steamed pudding, run a gentle knive around the outside of each pudding before turning out.
Other versions
The turn-over lemon curd pudding
The family  version lemon curd pudding
family lemon curd pudding
Yellow lava coming through the top! Yum!

 

Another birthday cake: the swim party birthday cake

Another birthday, another cake.  This time for a six years old who wanted a swimming pool party. Since we live on an island in a protected bay (no waves), why not do it close to home, rather than drive 1/2 hour to the closest proper swimming pool.  It  was  to be a swim party in the little bay down from the house: shallow water (easy supervision) , lilos, shade, grass and fun kids who can spend their time in the water.  And that comes with a swim party birthday cake!

swim birthday party

The challenge

Resisting to heat and sun

It was a hot day, the party was at a little beach a few minutes walk. Bringing  the party home for the cake was out of question of course and bringing the cake to the party meant it had to be able to suffer heat for some time: no cream based filling, no custard filling, no butter cream icing.

Swim party without the whole mermaids story taking over

The next part of the challenge was the decoration  First I had only a limited amount of time available to complete the task.  Then I still wanted a cake that did not hint oo much around the mermaids world but had more water features in it, think Moana if you want!

The cake itself

Here, I went for a sure value, a cake I know super well, the Reine de Saba (Sheba’s Queen), used a tall edge baking tin and this was it. Generally I would make that cake “flatter” , as a result it is lighter and more fluffy than when piled high.

Result: really good cake. Did I add a filling.  No! I opted for the idea the children like simple things. The fact it was already a good chocolate cake was plenty.

The decoration

I opted for a layer of dark chocolate ganache surrounding the sides and top.  This help for the next stage and add a lovely soft chocolate kick (yum). Nothing thick, that layer was maybe two millimetres thick, maybe three in places.

On top of the ganache, I used fondant icing. You know, the one you buy in packs at the supermarket and roll flat with the rolling-pin. Using different food colourants we got a pretty cool outcome. I say “we” because Ben joined me when I was starting the sides and completed the waves on the side.

On top, there were only few components: a mermaid which we had to find in the toy box late at night (it was getting late) and a clam.  The pearl clam did take a little work.  I am not the biggest fan of macarons (or macaroons), I find them so sweet! As a result, I never did them before. I did one trial a few weeks before and this set of macarons.  Well, in the end, it is not that hard to make but you can’t really mak one or two, so make sure you have guests to help you go through the batch to avoid a sugar overdose!  The coral reef was also made with the macaron mix, I just piped it in that shape which became quite handy.

The recipe of the swim party birthday cake

It can be found HERE. The recipe for macaron is not included, I will get around to do it.  I did not find one that I liked in English , so used a French one. The recipe is the one used by the biggest French pastry chefs.

Shortbread cookies

Shortbread cookies use the sweet short crust pastry as a base.  After it is just a matter of having a few cookie cutters at home.  Children can decorate them with coloured sugar balls, sultanas, nuts or fondant.

Ingredients:
  • 250 g plain flour
  • 125 g softened butter
  • 125 g white sugar
  • 1 egg
Method:
  1. In a large bowl, mix all ingredient together and form a ball.  Over a few movements, knead it on the kitchen bench to ensure cohesion (20 seconds max). Rest for 15-20 minutes.
  2. Dust the kitchen bench with flour to prevent sticking. Place the dough on the kitchen bench.  Dust the top similarly. Roll with the rolling-pin to 6 to 8 mm thick. Ensure the bottom is not stuck by lifting the pastry gently. Add more flour underneath of necessary.
  3. Using cookie cutters make the shapes and transfer them onto a baking sheet covered with baking paper.
  4. If the children want to decorate, use sultanas or pieces of nuts or sugar balls. Smarties work well too.
  5. Bake 10-15 minutes on 160 degrees Celsius until light blonde. Remove from the oven and slide the base on a cooling rack using the baking paper.  Allow to cool.

Butter-free chocolate cake

This is pretty much as guilt free as chocolate cake go: no butter and pretty low sugar. What I like with this butter-free chocolate cake is that it is also much easier to digest than a traditional chocolate cake.  Why? How?  Simply by replacing the butter by very (like very) thinly grated zucchini (a.k.a. courgette).  And if you are on a gluten-free diet, you could also replace the little flour in there by GF flour.

Before you start:

  1. You need a good quality cooking chocolate (in Australia, the 70% cocoa Nestle Plaistowe is suitable)
  2. The zucchini: 200 g of zucchini and no more (a bit less is fine). I have now done the cake a few times, trialing a few variations.  The last one used 180 g of zucchini and was fine! However, if you add more (which I also did), the cake loses some of its moisture from a denser texture.  Two hundred grammes zucchini is one average size piece of vegetable.  You need to peel it and remove the ends.  Then weight it. Grate it over a bowl and make sure to keep all the juice.  I was asked the question: can you use the blender. I tried, it works, just a bit much more washing-up than the grater for little saving, your choice.
  3. The flour: the flour weight is only 50 g.  If you go for a gluten-free option, you can either use cornflour but then you need to reduce it to 35 g as corn flour absorbs more moisture than wheat flour, or use one of the GL flour mix.

guilt free chocolate cake

Ingredients:
  • 4 eggs
  • 200 g dark cooking chocolate
  • 80 g caster sugar
  • 200 g thinly grated zucchini (see note above)
  • 50 g plain flour (see note above)
  • 100 mL milk (of your choice)
Method:
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Butter and flour well a 20 cm round cake tin.
  3. Break the chocolate in pieces and melt with half of the milk.  You can either use the microwave on one minutes settings full power, repeat if not fully melted either with 30 second or another minutes (it depends on the power of your microwave). Once the chocolate is melted, stir until smooth and silky, add the remaining milk.
  4. In a clean bowl, separate the egg yolks from the whites.  Beat the yolks with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the zucchini (juice included).  Add the chocolate to the mix.
  5. Finally, mix in the flour.
  6. Beat the egg white to snow and carefully fold into the chocolate mix.
  7. Pour into the prepared tin.  Place in the oven, reduce the heat to 160°C after 10 minutes.  The cake should cook in 20-30 mn depending on ovens.  Remove when the centre is no longer wobbly when gently pressed with a couple fingers. Allow to cool down in the tin for five minutes before transferring to the serving dish:  turn over a metal rack and then over the serving dish.

Tip: if you have a child helping you tell them to mix in the flour and cocoa starting from the centre, always touching the bottom of the bowl , let them enlarge the circle as the centre gets darker. This technique will avoid lumps. 

Tip: wondering what happens if you don’t reduce the oven? The cake will cook quicker and can lose a little moisture but not that much, it will still be quite moist. 

And if you are wondering about the taste brought by the zucchini, I will tell that if people don’t know about it, they are unlikely to guess. Once you know, you will possibly note a taste a little more “earthy”, but, to be honest, nothing preventing the cake disappearing in minutes and for zucchini-advert kids to take a second or third helping!

guilt free chocolate cake

It is all about pears

At the moment it is all about pears. Did you notice? They have arrived in many kind and are just beautiful.  My favourite to eat is the Pear Williams, when they are just ripe and full of juice. For some reasons, many Australians like their pears stone hard. I just don’t get it – apart for having a less messy fruit – because a hard pear has so little flavour compared to a ripe pear!

When it comes to dessert, pears can be used a number of way.  My latest addition to the blog is the “Poire Belle Hélène”, the hero dish of the week. There are plenty more family desserts with pears either comforting or elegant, all delicious! Here you go:

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The Poire Belle Hélène (Pear Belle Helene)

A French classic, elegant, light and always impressive.  The pears are poached in a syrup often composed of white wine, spices such as cinnamon, vanilla, cloves and served with a hot chocolate sauce.

For my recipe, click HERE.

poached pear

A family Pear and Almond Tart

tarte poire et amande This is a very easy tart. A recipe from Donna Hay.  The beauty is that you do not need to worry about a pastry, there is none.

A number of pears variety work for this tart: Corella, Williams, Packam.

The recipe is HERE.

 

 

 

 

The mid-week pear and chocolate flan

Now, this is a family’s favourite, as much for children as for adults!  It takes 5 minutes to make.  A great way to use pears that need eating! Soooooo easy. Recipe: HERE! 

flan poire chocolat

The Pear and Chocolate Tart

A chocolate glazing hiding a melty creamy pear filling! This is a little more elaborate, not your mid-week type of dessert as it takes a bit more time to make.  But yum yum yum!  The photo is not exceptional I realise, time to do it once more and this time do mouth watering photos.

hidden pear & chocolate tart

Another simple poached pear and its yogurt cake

Poached pears can be served just as such because they are truly beautiful. This pears were poached  similarly to the “Poire Belle Helene“.  The yoghurt cake is HERE.

The ever simple pear tart

If you are after something simple, not fancy, stop here.  A pear tart is just that, similarly to an apple tart.

Use option B of the “Everyday apple tart” recipe and add the almond meal. Pears are juicy and the almond meal will soak up the juice and avoid a soggy tart.

 

The sugar tarte

The sugar tarte, known in Belgium and northern France as “la tarte au sucre” is a tarte based on a yeasted dough, soft brown sugar and cream.  It is very simple to make and you can get the kids involved all along.

sugar tarte

Ingredients:

For the dough

  • 200 g of plain flour
  • 100 g of butter
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tbsp of milk
  • 1 tbsp of caster sugar
  • 10 g of fresh yeast (or 4 of dry yeast)
  • 1 pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)

For the toping:

  • 125 g of soft brown sugar
  • 1 dL (100 mL) of cream
Method:
  1. In a large bowl, place the flour in the bowl and with a spoon, make a well (a hole in the middle of the flour in which you will place all the other ingredients).
  2. Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk.
  3. Add in the well, the yeast, butter, caster sugar, egg and salt.
  4. Mix until you obtain a nice dough.
  5. Transfer into a large bowl, cover with a clean tea-towel and allow to rise in a warm corner until almost double.
  6. Preheat the oven on 180°C.
  7. Butter and flour your tarte tin. Transfer the dough and using the palm of your hand, spread it gently making a little edge.  in the centre spread the soft brown sugar, then randomly pour the cream.
  8. Bake until the edges are golden brown.
  9. Eat warm or cold (do not place in the fridge).

Flourless raspberry, almond and chocolate cake

The recipe for this flourless raspberry, almond and chocolate cake was created out of a test I did one night some eight years ago.  I had completely forgotten about it, until I visited the Orange Grove market a year ago where the same cakes in individual portions are sold.

When I first made this cake, we lived in Bondi Beach.  I remember because it became the favourite after diner snack of a Swedish flatmate at the time, when she left, she specifically asked for the recipe (which I gave her).

Now, more important for some of you, this cake has no flour! If you run out of almond meal as happens to me from time to time, you can swap for hazelnut meal, I tried, it works!

Ingredients:

Makes a 20 cm ring cake.

  • 40 g butter
  • 2 tablespoon cocoa powder
  • 100 g dark cooking chocolate
  • 1/2 cup of buttermilk
  • 2 eggs
  • 50 g of caster sugar
  • 75 g of almond meal
  • 1 cup of frozen raspberries

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 160°C, line the bottom of a 20 cm diameter (or close to 20 cm) circular tin.
  2. Melt the chocolate and butter together.
  3. Add one after the other one, mixing well in between: the sugar, cocoa powder, and buttermilk.
  4. Now, add the egg yolks one at the time keeping the eggwhites in a separate bowl.
  5. Add the almond meal.
  6. Beat the egg white to snow and gently fold in.
  7. Pour the batter in the tin and spread delicately the raspberries on top.
  8. Bake until the centre is settled (no longer wobbly).For the baking the key is to cook slowly to prevent burning.
  9. Remove from the oven and allow to cool down completely before removing the cake from the tin.
  10. Ice with icing sugar.

raspberry chocolate buttermilk